Pooh's Hunny Hunt
Pooh's Hunny Hunt is a unique 'trackless' dark ride located at Tokyo Disneyland. It is based on The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, and is Fantasyland's most popular attraction. History All the Skyways in the Disney parks closed. Imagineers had a hard time thinking on a new attraction, but fastly thought a Beauty and the Beast-like ride, with the same rooms and the trackless technology, but with a different scenario and with teacups instead of honey pots. The next version of the popular attraction, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, considerably different in configuration, was Pooh's Hunny Hunt, which opened in Tokyo Disneyland. Due to a closure of all of the Skyways at Disney Parks across the world, including Tokyo, a space was left where the Fantasyland station once stood. With a budget of over $130 million, and featuring a never-before-used 'trackless' ride technology, Pooh's Hunny Hunt opened in late 2000 to large crowds and praise by many Disney internet fansites. To date, it continues to have some of the longest wait times of any attraction at the Tokyo Disneyland Resort. Plot As the guests enter a giant book, they enter Pooh's house with a large hole in its end full of book pages with Pooh's different emotion heads printed. There, the guests board their Hunny Pot vehicles and a Cast Member says good bye to them as they enter a room with more pages, but instead of Pooh's emotions, letters are printed in the pages. On one of the pages is a projection of Pooh asking Christopher Robin to borrow a balloon. After Pooh acquires Christopher Robin's balloon, two book pages move away from each other to reveal the Hundred Acre Wood in the middle of the blustery day as Pooh goes floating with his balloon following each of the vehicles until they get together to see Tigger popping up and then entering into a room where 3 projections of Tigger singing The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers while running away from some bees. The next room shows a new sequence where the cars move backwards, showing Tigger stuck in a bee hive and the bees circle around him. As the cars slowly turn forward again, guests see a plaque saying Pooh with some of the letters backwards. This room features scary music and a dark scenario, telling riders that something is going to happen. When the cars move forward again, they are in another room where Pooh is in his pajamas and he is sleeping in his house, holding the blue balloon that Christopher Robin gave him earlier. Suddenly, the room morphs into a starfield with Pooh and the balloon still there. Pooh slowly spins and quickly disappears. When this happens, Pooh's balloon is given eyes, a mouth and an elephant's trunk. The guests then move on to the next room, which contains the same elements as the Magic Kingdom's Pooh ride, including the objects with eyes and mouths, but in a gigantic scale. Some of the props have holes at the height of the guests heads and when the cars approach them, they show 3D projections of Heffalumps and Woozles doing comedy acts. The cars spin through a ballroom-like room, hearing a ballad similar to the Heffalumps and Woozles song and encountering false vehicles with a Heffalump & Woozle family riding in it. After leaving the Heffalumps & Woozles room, the vehicles go backwards quickly through a tunnel with the projections of Pooh spinning above and the monsters before the large doors block the guests from returning. At the end of the tunnel, the guests head back into the 100 Acre Wood. However, they find that this isn't the 100 Acre Wood the guests began the ride in. It has now become victim to a flood-inducing rainfall. At this point, the honey pot vehicles now goes on a water flume track. They float along the waters of the flooded Wood as projected rain falls along the walls of the area. The Japanese vocal version of "The Rain, Rain, Rain Came Down, Down, Down" plays. Where they’ll seem to be higher due to the flood. Once they enter the flooded wood, the first thing the guests see is Pooh, who is sitting on a tree branch that the guests go under. He sits with 10 honey pots as he says that he must rescue his supper!” Passing under Pooh, the guests set off to see how the other residents of the Hundred Acre Wood are holding up. First, they pass by Piglet, standing on a chair, bailing water with a saucepan. He floats right out of his house towards them. Next, the guests pass by Owl, sitting on a rocking chair, still talking about his family members. Then, they pass by Eeyore, sitting on a door frame complaining about the wind, and now the water. The final group the guests float by are Tigger, Kanga, Roo and Rabbit, sailing along in a turned-over umbrella, which Tigger rows. Much like before, Roo isn't fazed. But Rabbit, on the other hand, is far more anxious. Then, the things take a decidedly darker tone. First, they pass by Pooh, stuck head-first in a spinning honey pot. Then, the guests pass by Tigger and Piglet, Where Tigger is trying to save Piglet from floating away. And when Tigger asks Piglet if he said a waterfall they plummet down one, by getting spritzed as soon as they land. The honey pots load onto a turntable. They “fall down” the Virtual Waterfall while the turntable turns the passengers a hundred and thirty-five degrees. Between the honey pot and the screen, there are water jets. The water jets are angled at the screen. They create a sheet of water that skewers their sense of perspective, and it looks like the waterfall, itself. At the end of the Virtual Waterfall, water cannons shoot up a burst of water right in front of the honey pot, indicating that they’ve hit the lake, and they are now coming back up to the surface. After being a few inches away from the waterfall, they leave the water-track by coming back to the land where the skies clear, then the sun comes out, and a rainbow spreads overhead. Where everyone apart from Pooh is throwing a party because the rain has gone away. After that the guests then see Pooh enjoying honey inside the honey tree while saying how much he loves to eat it. The final room shows an empty bedroom with a giant book saying The End while the other page depicts a picture of Pooh and his friends. The vehicles then pass a big, closed storybook of the adventure after the narrator says that the guests' "Hunny Hunt" has ended then the guests disembark from the Hunny Pot vehicles and return to the unloading area. Ride System Although the ride system is like the other Disneyland-like dark rides, the car system is entirely new: a trackless, moving "Hunny Pot". The cars feature the new technology created by the engineers, the LPS (Local Positioning System). This makes good use of the large building, so that the cars can move easily through the rooms. A similar technology is used at Antarctica: Empire of the Penguin at SeaWorld Orlando in Florida. Similar rides Tokyo DisneySea, an amusement park adjacent to Tokyo Disneyland, features Aquatopia. The ride utilizes the same trackless technology as Pooh's Hunny Hunt; however, it runs in a shallow pool. Disneyland, Magic Kingdom, Shanghai Disneyland and Hong Kong Disneyland all feature dark rides based on Pooh. These rides operate as The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and feature a more traditional track-based dark ride system. Category:Attractions